And lo, it was evening and morning, the third day. Film festivals, I just want to say, despite being awesome and filled up with good energy and generally making me feel like I’m cool for being there, are a huge ass pain when it comes to organizing and providing thoughts. ‘Cause seriously. I’ve still got three movies to go, and I feel like I’ve been doing nothing else but reviewing stuff for almost an Age of Man. But ignore the complaints, because it was awesome and filled with good energy. I drank way too much soda over the course of the weekend, though.
Anyway, the first movie of the third night was Wicked Little Things, a pretty straight vengeful spirit story. It seems that a greedy mine-owner ordered some dynamite set off under unsafe conditions, resulting in the deaths of a couple of dozen child laborers. Ultimately, the mine was closed down and the land mostly abandoned for decades, except for some of the miner families who had nowhere else to go. Enter recently widowed Karen Tunny and her two daughters, moving into her husband’s childhood home after finding an old deed buried among his personal papers. Unfortunately for our blonde and reasonably petite heroine, the zombified spirits of the dead children (with heroic effort, I am foregoing a minor miner pun here) have been more active than ever lately; the owner of the mine and surrounding lands has decided to develop it into a ski resort, and nevermind how they’d wander the mountain and killing strangers in previous years, the true object of their revenge has them working overtime this week.
No breasts. Seven bodies. Shovel to the brainpan. Pick fu. Passover fu. Pig devouring. Drive-in academy award nominations to the plumber for saying that it would only take a day to replace the broken pipes, because “I’m going to be out of here before sundown!”, to the kooky neighbor for saying, “You can thank me later [for smearing a jar of my blood all over your front door]”, and to the greedy mine heir for having the asshole equivalent of perfect pitch. Lessons learned: 1) If your youngest daughter asks if her “imaginary” friend who lured her down to the abandoned mine can play in her room, instead of saying ‘yes’, consider saying ‘only if I get to meet her first’. 2) If a mountain is known around town for swarming with zombie children, consider choosing a different mountain for Makeout Ridge. Three and half stars.